Edition #81 – 9/6/2006
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UPDATE: I wrote this review yesterday, before the product actually launched (based on the preview sample sites, and sales page). Today I ordered and paid for the full product and my review still stands. I am also adding some additional notes to the bottom of this review, now that I’ve had a chance to see the full product.
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Tomorrow Cody Moya launches his AdSense Templates product. It is a monthly membership site, which provides templates and pre-built sites for AdSense.
Unfortunately, I have to recommend that you do NOT buy Cody Moya’s AdSense Templates, and I’ll tell you exactly why.
First of all, you may already know that I’m looking at this through a somewhat biased lens, because I happen to be Joel Comm’s partner for his Instant AdSense Templates product.
However, I’m going to IGNORE the fact that Cody “borrowed” several key elements, design concepts, and parts of the sales letter from our product… (He even went so far as to put Joel Comm’s name and image on his squeeze page until Joel told him to take it down…)
Competition is a part of the business, and I don’t blame Cody for competing… unfortunately he just went about it the wrong way at first (and in talking to my marketing friends, it sounds like he may have a track record of doing that kind of thing). But like I said, I’m going to completely overlook that side of it and focus on the product itself to bring you as accurate and objective review as possible.
First of all, let’s look at the templates themselves. Here are the three sample templates he provided (with pre-built sites):
(Links removed – no longer available)
Let’s talk about the design first. It’s OK but could be better. He is using one of the basic designs that we used in the first edition of Instant AdSense Templates. The navigation is on the left side, and he’s got either an AdSense leaderboard with thumbnails above it, or an AdSense large rectangle with thumbnails to the left of it.
If the illustrations on the sales page are any indication are any indication, then ALL of Cody’s templates are based on these two variations. For the kind of volume he’s providing, it’s understandable that not every template would be a unique design, but I would have expected more than two.
Another thing I don’t like about the structure, is that it’s so graphically-based. Even the borders are images, so if you wanted to change the look of the template you’d pretty much have to be a graphic designer.
Since Cody is not an AdSense expert, he repeatedly talks about being an SEO expert throughout the sales letter. This makes it somewhat surprising that the sites are poorly optimized.
The same TITLE tag is used for each page (the most important tag for SEO). This almost ensures that not many of the pages will be indexed by the search engines. Also, he uses graphics in place of the article titles. In general, the article title is one of the most important key phrases on a page, and should be bold or even in a header tag (like H3). However, he’s got nothing, and since he doesn’t use ALT tags on his images, the search engines see nothing. This is from Google’s webmaster guidelines…
“Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn’t recognize text contained in images.”
OK, so let’s talk about the AdSense implementation. This is one area where Cody’s lack of expertise really shows. He’s got ONE AdSense block per page. This could be OK if AdSense is just one of several strategies you’re implementing on your page, but if your main objective is to get AdSense clicks, then more AdSense blocks is almost always better (compare to Instant AdSense Templates, which utilize the maximum allowable three blocks per page).
Another thing you’ll notice is that he’s got a link back to his own site at the bottom of every page. Obviously that’s not helpful to you as the user, as it would only serve to take visitors away from your site. It also creates a nice footprint for the search engines to find all of these sites and drop them from their indexes.
So those are some things I noticed about the templates… now let’s look at a couple other things that he’s including.
I’d say his implied unique selling point (USP) is his inclusion of what he calls the “White Hut Template HTML Code Randomizer“.
No that’s not a typo… he actually calls it “White Hut” about 10 times in the sales letter. I’m guessing someone may point that out to him before he launches it tomorrow.
Closer inspection of the concept reveals that indeed, it is NOT a “white hat” tactic. In fact, it is a very BLACK HAT technique.
Here is what the sales letter says about it…
Each of my AdSense Templates members will receive proprietary “White Hut template randomizer/content wizard” software.
This incredible software makes random changes to a template’s HTML page code. These changes don’t make the page look any different to human eyes but do make it appear different to the search engines. This is NOT so called cloaking which show different page to search engine and different to user. This software produces your own unique to you static html page each time. Therefore this unique page code is the same to search engine and to viewer which is white hut technique.
Just to reiterate… the program does not make any visible changes, it ONLY changes what the search engine sees. In other words, it is designed to trick the search engines into thinking the content is unique.
Why do you need to be VERY concerned about using this technique? Because it could cause you to get completely dropped from Google’s index. Here are some key points from Google’s webmaster guidelines…
“Make pages for users, not for search engines.”
“Another useful test is to ask, ‘Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?'”
By the way, perhaps you’re wondering about the technical side of how someone would make their code unique without changing the look of the page. There are several ways it could be done, including…
Cody says his program is the ONLY place you can do this, but there are other places. I just listed a bunch of methods, but the point is that you shouldn’t use ANY of them.
There are other inconsistencies, and I’m not going to take the time to point them out, but one particular irony that I noticed is his bonus #2 (277,000 Article Database Plus Article Directory Script). In the sales letter he goes to great lengths to diminish the value of free distribution articles (while building up the value of PLR content), and then he includes a monster sized directory of what? Free distribution articles!
He says this about it…
“…so you will immediately have all the important content you need for your AdSense pages. You should not need to search for any other content for a very, very long time!”
This is after he specifically warned that free distribution articles should be avoided due to their duplicate content and outbound links. Hmmm…
His bonus #3 (Cookie Stuffer Software), which is another black hat technique, almost inspired me to do a little cookie stuffing of my own, LOL. I thought it might be interesting to drop an affiliate cookie for Cody’s product on all my readers just to see who buys it in spite of my warning. But I’m not going to stoop to his level. I’m not cookie-ing you for his product, so just don’t buy it, OK?
If you’ve been reading my newsletter for awhile, you know that I do not make a habit of badmouthing people, or bashing their products without warrant. Look, I’m going to see Cody in about a week at the seminar in Baltimore, and then I’m going to be hanging out with him and some other marketers later this year. I’m OK with that, because I feel that I’ve given an honest review, and I value my readers.
I’m probably burning a bridge or two with this review, and that’s OK. I hope you’ve gleaned something from it, and I wish you the best.
As always, you can leave your comments here in the blog.
Have a great day!
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Additional notes added 09/05/06, now that I’ve bought and seen the full product:
After reviewing the full product, I’m sticking by my review. One positive thing I will add, is that the graphics are excellent (particularly the first 25 templates).
One thing I was surprised about, was that there were not 100 topics covered by the 100 templates. There are exactly 51 topics covered by my count, with the rest of the templates being alternative templates about those topics. So that’s not really too big of a deal, but I thought I’d mention it because I think a lot of people would be a little surprised by it.
Also I should let you know that I’ve been dialoging with Cody, and one thing he was concerned about is that I reviewed the software as being “black hat” without having actually tried it yet.
I have now tested it, so rather than adding further comments about it, I’ll post my results and let you draw your own conclusions as to whether the software improves the site, or simply games the search engines…
I used the “chocolate” template from the sample sites:
So that’s about all I have to say about this product.
I would like to take this opportunity to address a couple of other issues though, that a few people have brought up.
I’ve received about 3 emails so far from people who think I am “the pot calling the kettle black” with this review. In other words, they think it is hypocritical of me to criticize Cody or his product, because they think I am as bad or worse.
First of all, let me say that the pot is calling the kettle black ANY time someone points out the shortfalls of another person, because everyone makes mistakes. I am the first to admit that I make mistakes frequently. And that’s probably the biggest reason that it is so difficult to write negative reviews.
There are two specific incidences that have been brought to my attention in this regard.
1) the fact that IAT was accused of copyright infringement
2) the theory that my Motivated Marketing System was a rip-off of Butterfly Marketing
So let me address those two issues.
The IAT issue was an honest mistake on my part, due to a misunderstanding. The fact that I didn’t intend to misuse any material does not negate the fact that it was a mistake. I admitted it, we worked it out professionally, and it will not happen again.
The MMS issue, I think is misunderstood by some people. I did not rip off Butterfly Marketing. It is true that I created a similar product and went into competition with it, but the way that I did it was very different than this scenario.
I do think Mike Filsaime was very gracious in the situation by not launching a counterattack of sorts, and I appreciate his friendship. I consider him a mentor, and he has even given me advice regarding MMS. One thing that some of the BM customers (who were upset at me for competing) probably don’t realize, is that I never stopped promoting BM or referring my readers to it.
I sold several copies of the full BM home study course both before and after launching MMS. And when Mike launched the BM manuscript I promoted it heavily, ending up 2nd in his affiliate contest (only behind Cody Moya, LOL 😉 ). I even promoted it to my MMS customers, because I knew there were things they would learn from BM that they didn’t get from MMS.
I think another reason Mike didn’t freak out about MMS is because I took a different approach. Neither the learning materials, nor the script were based in whole or in part on the BM materials.
While the BM site builder script was revolutionary, it wasn’t the first of its kind. Some people may remember the Instant Split Commissions script, or the JV Firesale automator. We did not reverse engineer the BM script. In fact, my programmer had never even SEEN the BM script.
Ok, so all that said… hopefully most people will realize that I competed fairly. NEVERTHELESS, I will say that if I had to do it over again I would do it differently. I am aware that my intentional riding the wake of BM’s success tarnished my reputation with some people, and I do value my reputation more than any amount of money I could have possibly made from MMS.
I have learned so much this year, and I’m sure that by this time next year I will look back and see some more things I would do differently.
But I don’t interpret all of this to mean that I shouldn’t TRY to help people, or that I shouldn’t speak the truth when I am able.
As I mentioned when I first started writing this review, my point was not to drag Cody’s name through the mud by making accusations. My point was to do a product review for my readers, while admittedly defending my own product. But since some people are insisting that it become more than that, I’ll leave you with a couple of final pieces of information to help tell my side of the story.
As I mentioned a couple paragraphs ago, when we created MMS to compete with BM we did not reverse engineer it, and in fact my programmer never even saw the BM script. Cody’s situation is a little different because his programmers clearly did have access to the IAT product. Various elements of the product, sales pitch, and business strategy were copied.
Like I said before, this isn’t the point of this review, and I wasn’t even going to show any of this. But some people seem to thing it was WRONG of me to even insinuate that our product ideas were used unfairly.
I could show you several examples, but I don’t want to go overboard, so here’s a couple comparisons…
I’ll let you decide whether that was a cool thing for him to do.
I have been conversing with Cody about it, and I am ready to move on and put all this behind us. But I do hope he learns something from this experience, as I have learned from my own mistakes in the past.
Great feedback, Eric. Thanks for your honest reporting of the good and the bad on the internet.
Thanks for the Info! It was very informing and I be turning Codys offer down……….
Ken
PS: will be looking into your template offer as I make some money from Instant AdSense !
Again Eric you’re pulling no punches when it comes to exposing the hidden scams of the web.
I’m very happy with your Instant AdSense Templates and would never invest my time or money into anything else.
Just finished putting the following IAT sites online today:
http://wholelotabout.com/creditcards/
http://wholelotabout.com/autoloan/
So far for the first week of the month of September , I’ve generated over $75 in Adsense revenue, and that’s directly attributed to your IAT sites.
I doubt if this so called black hat Adsense template pack could even come close to generating the overall income your templates have done, not only with Adsense, but 5 other different affiliate programs I’m promoting on the sites.
If you guys want a real winner, hold off until October 10 for IAT2 to be released. The first set sold out in record time and I highly urge you to sign up for any alert list or stay tuned to this blog to keep informed.
My only suggestion for IAT2 is for you guys to include some sort of video tutorial explaining how to change the thumbnail photos contained in the various Adsense image blocks. Also suggesting a good site to download more thumbnail photos to create more Adsense Niche image blocks. Photoshop layers are very hard for me to grasp, but a well thoughtout video tutorial giving steps for achieving this would be of great help.
Would love to create a Halloween and Christmas Niche site, but don’t see any image blocks for IAT1 to use in the Your Own Original Content Site Builder templates to produce the pages I want.
Thanks Eric for your hard hitting review of Cody’s product and I look forward to your opinion of similar products in the future.
Best Wishes,
Kenneth Washington
P.S. You and Joel should consider creating a membership site for your Adsense templates. I would definitely pay for such a service on a monthly basis. Heck, you could include a section for thumbnail images for use in the Adsense image blocks if people wish to create their own.
Eric, I had this feeling all along that I had hooked up with a decent bloke, You just confirmed that with the Moya’s adsense revue.
You’d get on well here in Australia. It is a thing here that you don’t say anything about someone that you wouldn’t be prepared to say to their face.
I for one am very impressed, not with the revue but with you complete honesty.
Today, we here in Oz. are mourning the loss of Steve Irwin (the Crockodile Man)
He was killed yesterday on the Great Barrier Reef. I know it hasn’t anything to do with Internet Marketing, but for us as a nation it is a profound loss.
Milton.
Thanks Eric for your review. I hadn’t planned to purchase the CM templates as I’m still working through IAT1and 2. I found your comments to be quite educational so I’ve learned something constructive for which I’m grateful. The sad side of it is that I’ll never get to know how to make the yummy sounding chocolate recipes as shown on the first sample page. Ah well..I grudgingly suppose that the waistline will be forever thankful.
Veronica
Thank you. I received one of his emails and thank you again for informing us of this matter. If you didn’t mention this, some of us might be promoting the wrong stuff to our lists…
Hi Eric,
I’m a newbie in internet marketing and had lots of wandering around in my learning. Along the way, I pick thing up here and there – quite at random and with not much focus.
I also came across Cody’s offer and thought it interesting. Then I received your Eric’s Tips with this content. I’m impressed by your honest and candid presentation, especially touching on matters of integrity. Your deep understanding of your office reflects in the manner you investigate issues. This is what makes your advise objective and unbiased (in my perspective).
Hope your comments teach other internet marketers a lesson or two on such issues as integrity and respect for proprietary rights. I learned them well myself.
Keep it up!
All is well,
ReyM
WOW! All I can say is thank you. Like my daughter always says “I want to be just like you when I grow up”. Thanks again for your honesty.
Thanks for telling the truth. I’ve bought premade sites from Cody once but never again. For example, in the one on learning disabilities, all the articles were written by some not native English speaker, and they were nearly all rants on how her son who was LD was not treated “properly” (how she wanted it done) at school. I planned originally to rewrite the articles to correct the English, but as I read them, there was almost no usable content there once I took out the rants.
Eric,
I wonder how much of the volumes of advice in I have received and investigated in Cody’s e-series is dangerous, or at least detrimental. I had always given him the benefit of the doubt despite a bit too much self-promotion.
I put GREAT stock in integrity – my own, first, and then in that of the guru/advisors whose products and advice I recommend to my subscribers. My subscribers are already anxious, excited, wanting to believe what they read. It’s shameful that ANYONE takes advantage of that.
I have no use for those who are only about making a buck at someone else’s expense.
I haven’t known you or known of you long but your wisdom and care are apparent. I’d rather have someone on my side who cares enough to risk offending some, for their protection and good, than I would 20 who might make me some money – but at the expense of my rep and the trust of those I want most to help – my subscribers and customers.
I will look forward to more from you and have no reservation now (not that I ever did) of recommending you to those who trust me.
Hey Cody,
No one is gonna blame you for being honest and telling the truth. Let’s face it, we all know you get results at whatever you persue in the internet marketing arena. That is why we are subscribers to your marketing tips filled to the brim newsletter.
Tell ya something else, we would probably hate you, IF YOU DIDN’T TELL US THE TRUTH. Keep “Spillin The Beans” , on those who seek to hoodwink us into believing that they are experts, instead of pretenders in this
fast moving field of internet marketing and adsense gurus.
http://www.bookmarkme.us
Thank you Eric- Great job-once again you are my
guru. The only thing that is missing from this brilliant review is a discount coupon or promo code so that
people like me can purchase yours and Joel’s Adsense System at a discount on the very day that
Cody is launching his half-baked rendition.
Eric,
Thanks for the review. I was getting his stuff up until 5 months ago when I lifted the sheet on his business and noticed some very strange behavior. He also got very upset when someone put some of his products on a membership and was not supposed to. He was rude. At that time it was so long for me. Thanks for being you.
Ross
Many people is aiming to obtain a lot of money from adsense. It is surprising people like Cody Moya who I’m sure already have been in business for quite some time now is trying to cheat other people. Anyway, good job Eric.
I just hope you also give a review on Website Content Wizard Software by David Watson. It is such a hot product right now. But I’m not quite sure is it worth to buy.
hi Eric,
I have come here from a newsletter I just read from someone I respect greatly online.
In reading what I have here, I am very grateful that there are still people on the Internet who don’t all subscribe willy-nilly to every bloomin’ new thing on the market!
having said that I appreciate most tremendously, the facts you have given in your blog and your honesty in doing so. Also the honesty of the gentleman who sent me the email so I could look here and see your review.
To people like me, an “older aged pensioner”, it is difficult enough to get started in an online business wihtout having our meagre funds ripped from us so to speak, for something that is not really what it says. Maybe that’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but I’m sure you understand what I’m saying.
Bless you Eric, and my email friend for having the “guts” to tell it honestly.
Please stay that way. There really are so few of you out there.
Just to play the devil’s advocate for a moment: Hut is the german word for hat 🙂 Nonetheless it does look like an attempt to make money on the side. I’ll stick with Joel Comm’s templates.
Seo Marketing – What Joel said is true… in fact I saw that email before he even sent it. The content IS minimal this time, like he said (referring only to the PLR article pages). But it is ALSO better this time, like I said.
Walter – sure, feel free to send anyone a link to it 🙂
E
Hi Eric:
Just want to say that after a few minutes review of the three sites, I not only questioned
the graphics as being of a personal “homepage” venue, the double talk black hat
tactics downright dissed me. I would tell my readers of anything that will not only cause
them to assume that I would possibly think of using such techniques, but I will not
recommend anything to anyone, that will, in the end, cause discredit to the internet
marketing “good-guys”.
This will not only put a bad reflection on Cody, but will cause a loss of respect and
trust, for anyone who buys and tries to impliment these types of sites. This IS one of those
things which cause some to throw up their hands in defeat, and throw in the towl from
internet marketing.
Thank you, not only for taking the time and emotion to bring this type of “get it now”
marketing to the forefront, but for also having the medium to do so.
Howie- to answer your question, I do think Cody has done some good stuff. Particularly his giveaways. The thing you need to keep in mind about those, is that Cody is the one who profits most from it. It’s part of why he has one of the biggest subscriber lists in the industry. I’ve actually joined a few of his giveaways, and added my own products, to help gain subscribers.
He’s got some good techniques too, particularly in his use of bonuses to drive affiliate sales. I’ve personally subscribed to his newsletter for a long time, and I haven’t really gotten much out of it. But I have learned some things by observing him.
As someone previously mentioned, Cody is a highly successful marketer. In fact, its an incredibale feat that he immigrated to the US, spoke very little English, and became one of the top affiliate marketers in the WORLD in a couple years.
There’s no doubt that he currently holds a lot of power as a marketer, but I also know he’s stepped on his fair share of toes on his route to the top. It will be interesting to see if he adapts himself to a straighter path in order to establish himself as a long-term player in this business with long-term partners. Or if he will continue to venture further down his own path, alienating more partners, and relying more on his internal structure to sustain his business.
Mathias – I would not email the lists. Those are co-reg leads, and I did a lengthy review of that topic earlier this year…
http://www.ericstips.com/tips/coreg-leads/
Some people would differ with me on that opinion. Obviously Cody DOES believe in co-reg leads, and he has built one of the biggest and most profitble subscriber lists in the entire industry.
However, some things I think you should keep in mind…
If these were GOOD subscriber lists, Cody wouldn’t be giving them away.
Also, even IF they are good quality co-reg leads, Cody is distributing them to multiple people…usually 8 or more, from what I’ve observed on his bonuses. I actually question whether he is over-distributing those leads, because I’ve seen his stats on sales contests where he claimed to have something like 32 sets of leads, and he made 100’s of sales, but never stopped promoting the bonus in his emails he sent out. But that’s unsubstantiated speculation on my part. We would need to hear from some people who purchased through Cody during the 2nd day of a promo (or later) and see if they still received the email list bonus.
Ok, so even if he’s doing exactly what he says, that’s still a lot of distribution. Suppose only 3 of the 8 people end up using the leads. Those leads are suddently getting 3 unsolicited emails in a short period of time. And if there are thousands of people on the list, I can almost guarantee that at least a handful of them will be mad at the sudden rash of unsolicited email, and they will report you as a spammer.
For some marketers, that’s a price they’re willing to pay. I tried it personally, and I don’t like being called a spammer, so I’ve never done it again.
William- No Joel didn’t borrow any templates. The issue was with some of the PLR content…and that was my misunderstanding, not Joel’s. Anyway, it was quickly resolved, and we’re doing it a better way this time.
Milton- I was very sorry to hear about the loss of Steve Irwin. I loved that guy! My heart goes out to Irwin’s family and fans.
An excellent critique, Eric. Mind you, I developd a rule some time ago that brought me to the same conclusion with much less work. It is: ‘Never buy anything from Cody Moya’.
Yay for some honesty!!
Thank you Eric,
Suspected the same and am also sending warning out to my readers.
Keep going and and as always looking forward to your information.
Regards
Leon
Hello Eric.
And the truth shall set you free.
Honesty is a wonderful policy, it shows you have something that is rare these days.(INTEGRITY)
Charles.
BLESS YOU.
September 5th, 2006 at 1:30 am
I am shocked that you would send an email to your subscribers about another marketer’s product the day before it launches. This is not professional at all. I’d hate to think that any marketer would do such a nasty thing to another marketer but you have just proved to me that this could actually happen. You are purposefully trying to sabotage another marketers product before anyone has a chance to make up their own mind. I am angry. This isn’t something that should ever be done.
That was absolutely shrewd of you, unprofessional, and just plain dumb.
Let’s be honest, would you like anyone messing with your income like that?
If you don’t like a product, don’t promote it. I can’t believe you did what you did.
Anthony Tomei
Thanks Eric for your honest review.
Honestly speaking I agree with you that Cody’s products are all for newbies but not experienced marketers.
Good Luck.
Anthony – you’re shocked that I would give a negative review? It’s certainly not the first time, and I could point out your own comments on my blog where you’ve thanked me for it before (and one other time where you respectfully disagreed with me). When should I have given it…AFTER my readers already bought it?
Maybe you’re trying to save face because you already gave a glowing testimonial on Cody’s sales page?
Hi Eric,
As usual you have give your honest review. Either good or bad in the product. So far as i know you are the one that give a no hidden facts on any product.
Thanks for the guidance especially to people (NEWBIE) like us in the adsense or IM world to have people like you. Salute.
cheers,
flwong
Aloha Eric,
Having bought Joels adsense manual when it first came out, I pretty much always think of him as the man. I appreciate your honesty based on facts. Not having dealt with Cody before, but seeing emails about his products, I am glad to be informed.
Mahalo
Jim Hall
Maui, Hawaii
http://www.chic-isle.com
http://ExploreMaui.net
Eric,
Things just get a little better every time I come to check out your tips.
First I want to say that I am so glad that I signed up for “Eric’s Tips”. It has been the most honest and useful information that I have found yet. You are very much appreciated and respected because of your dedication to your subscribers. Which is more than I can say for Anthony Tomei with his self serving remarks up there.
You see Eric the difference in you and Anthony is that you genuinely care about your subscribers and Anthony does not care about his unless they are buying from him. Just like you said, he would not have told his readers about this or he would have waited until they bought from him. At least that is how he made me feel a few weeks ago when I received an email that was just unbelievable from him. He used filthy language in the subject line and an 8 year old little girl read it before anyone else saw it. That is all I will say about that incident but I WOULD like to send you a copy of the email I receved from this wanna be marketer who upset a small child very much by this disgraceful email that he sent out to some of his subscribers.(Or maybe it was just sent to me because I have never bought anything from him) Hey, I though Marketers were supposed to go out of their way to keep a subscriber? That one evidently does not care if he has subscribers or not. All I can say is when you go to hurting your subscribers then you won’t last in Internet Marketing very long. Enough about that.
Eric, as always you did the right thing for your list. I always look forward to your email now and never let one go by without opening it. You are a great person and you treat your subscribers the way they should be treated.
Now back to the issue. I think most people are on to Cody and his deceptions but for the ones that aren’t, just let me say that Joel Comm is as honest as the day is long and I believe the same thing of Eric. So just hold out a couple more weeks and get the real deal on Adsense Templates and I know you will never have to worry about you Adsense sites, Google will love ’em.
Thank you for all your tips and reviews and please don’t ever stop.
Thanks again Eric,
I always look forward to your “To the point reviews” . Keep up the good work.
The best to you.
Bill
Hi Eric! I really find your product reviews very interesting and educational. The truth is, there are a lot more of these so-called “internet marketers”, who are really great in marketing hypes, that needed to be reviewed by you.
I just joined a paid monthly membership site a week ago, and unsubscribed three days after because they’ve been bombarding me with lots of emails on their other product. This other product would allow me to duplicate their techniques on how to create my own membership site, which I thought was a great tool to build an opt-in mailing list. However, I was annoyed by their multiple and identical emails each day with their overly-hyped sales letters. I mentioned this scenario because, just like other so-called “internet experts”, these self-proclaimed-bragging-millionaires-golfer-internet marketers will do anything to tease us. They cleverly convinced my trusted-genuine-kinda-naive internet marketer to promote for them to subscribe to their astonishing membership site, and to buy their so-expensive membership site product.
What else is good when you can read a basic, simple and direct marketing sales pitch? I’m desperately needing one, so I can save and wisely spend my hard-earned money.
Going back to Cody Moya’s, I think Anthony Tomei got upset for no valid reason at all. First, he’s got so much to say against you, Eric, but he failed to validate his point by not depending Cody, per se. Second, he brought up the issue on “messing up with other marketer’s income.” I thought it was very inconsiderate and judgemental for Anthony to say that when he knows that we’re all here to make a wise decision to do the right, correct way as we weigh and depend on Eric’s candid review and mentoring.
Anthony may have generally raised his points, but in this complexed internet world, we need to safeguard ourselves from any unscrupulous, greedy activities. If we all think like Anthony, who else would protect our investment and interest?
I admire you, Eric, for your brave words. Keep coming for more!
Hi Eric
Boy, did you open a can of worms with this one! Your review was very fair – the real “trashing” has been done by the comments posted by your subscribers.
The lesson to learn here is that you can’t get away with sub standard business practices online anymore. There are so many blogs and newsletters out there that allow reader comments, that there is no hiding place!
Key learning points from the comments above are:
1. Don’t promote anything without thoroughly checking it out first.
2. If you don’t know enough to check it out, ask someone who is proficient and then still be careful about promoting it.
3. If you really want to be of service to your list, give them good information and stick to areas you really know about.
4. You can make a living online without jumping on every bandwagon that comes along.
5. A good reputation is everything, once it’s gone – it can rarely be regained. A bad reputation will stick with you for life!
Yes, adsense can be a great earner if it’s done right – but let’s not forget that real business success comes from building websites that give useful information that is hard to find elsewhere and selling products and services that provide real benefit to customers.
But then if we all did that, the web would be a tiny fraction of the size it is and the good stuff would be easier to find – and that would spoil all the fun!
Keep up the good work Eric, I enjoy reading your stuff.
Hi Eric,
Thank you for your honest review. I believe it is important to get the truth out. I have spent so much money on junk products because no one was willing to step and tell it like it is.
For those of you who think it is wrong to give an honest review keep on buying and supporting everyone out there. Good or Bad.
Thanks Again
Ron
way to go eric!
too many people willing to just blow it off when they get screwed.
maybe if more people were willing to speak their mind when they get ripped off, this industry might be producing a whole lot less garbage software, scripts, ebooks & rip-offs in general/
the scumbuckets count on the fact that they’ll be able to get away with it, again & again………
regards,
stuart
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Wow Eric – basically only 1 negative comment out of 80 (now 81)!
I, and many others it seems, appreciate your honesty.
Like Milton said above, a sad day for us Aussies with the tragic death of Steve Irwin, the “Crocodile Hunter” – a dinky di Aussie, straight up and honest. Perhaps you should live Downunder – we like “fair dinkum” blokes like you.
I for one will be sticking with you mate. Newbies like myself and many of the others who have left a message need someone like you to give us the heads up. Keep up the good fight Eric!
Where can I find honest unbiased reviews of IAT?
While I too do not like the format and features etc of Cody’s samples, I found IAT lacking and not living up to the hype.
But most of all it has left a bad taste in my mouth especially with this new IAT coming so close on the heels of Adsense Code and IAT. It makes me feel that a half-assed job was done just to get some sort of mediocre product out, collect as much money and names as possible, so as to follow up with the rest of what should have been included in the first place, and collect money again.
So from that perspective, Cody’s product might be worth something. At least his bonuses should be better.
George
Hi Eric,
I’m sure the truth shall always prevail.
Thumbs ups and Cheers!
Bless you.
Mary Ann
Hi Eric,
The only thing that stopped me from looking at “the templates”
which you are referring to is the fact that I already own a set
which I bought from Joel on his last launch (haven’t even used
them yet), but thanks for the heads-up anyway. I won’t look at them
anymore. I am so overwhelmed with what I already am working
on I can’t keep up (information overload BIG TIME). Training with
Shawn Casey, and Ewan Chia’s Cloning, Nick Marks new site,
I can’t even do much but open my 80 emails per day.
I am glad you are keeping me advised with all your honesty.
I really appreciate your advice. I wish you lived next door to me.
Thanks again
Stan
really relevant to this review.
I think that he(mr Moya) work with so many people on a lot of projects that he have no idea what he doing.
Give me his money!
some months ago I sign up for one of his programs, from the start I had to not only try to build my business, but complet with his adds as well for the same products that I got from him as a member to his site….. I no longer open his mail or delete any mail with his name in it…….
I got a letter from someone about the templets, took a look and found them to be grade K-3, and felt that he got them from some one, put out the program without checking to see how they were.
Hi Eric,
Thanks for review, I appreciate it is honest and open. Especially when you are going to compete directly with reviewed product, it is not easy staying neutral.
Like Father Dave and many others, I also learned my lesson. Well, actually two lessons, as I was naive and trusting.
I want to promote your/Joel’s IAT2. Where/how I can join your team, please?
Regards,
Jaroslav
I am glad you wrote this review although I will not be buying adsense templates anywhere because adsense shut me off. My roommate didn’t realize that by using his computer and clicking on ads on one of my sites which hadn’t even been publicly introduced yet that he was getting me in trouble for invalid clicks. I tried to get my adsense account back but to no avail. But thanks for the review. I will be using old templates I have from several sources with ads from Kanoodle and other sources.
Thank you Eric,
To Anthony Tomei and all these other marketers out there who think that it is OK to promote rubbish, you will be found out!
Personally I am going through all the people promoting Cody’s rubbish and unsubscribing from them all. If they are prepared to promote a product that could cause people irreparable damage then they have no integrity, and don’t deserve my business.
Yes Mr Tomei that means YOU among others. You say to damage ONE marketers launch is unprofessional. What do you consider selling a flawed product to be? Are you one of the people preying off the novices to the internet?
Don’t expect others to agree with your warped sense of values.
Eric will I am sure benefit from this honest review immensely.
Hi, Eric.
Thanks for refocusing the discussion on what’s ethical
and legal according to Google’s TOS.
Ian DelCarmen tipped me off to your review and I’ll
point my subscribers here, too!
Best of Success,
Stephan
George – I can certainly understand your feelings, especially with us launching a “bigger and better” version of IAT so close to the last one. But one thing I know… we did not do a half-baked job on the last one. We put out the very best product that we could at the time, which was good but imperfect. It has received many accolades and testimonials of results, but also did not meet some peoples’ expectations (like yours). That’s part of why we’re making it better.
AS ALWAYS, YOUR TIPS SAVE ME TIME, MONEY AND EMBARRASSMENT. BEING A NEWER
MEANS MAKING FEWER MISTAKES WITH MY LIST. THANKS TO YOU, IT WORKS…KEEP IT UP!
Thanks for saving me extra 4am changes, and for printing the truth no matter what.
Keep up the great work.
Success in All Things
FelchGlobalEnterprises
Wow Eric!
If this were the olympics you’d win the gold medal outright! Thank you so much for your bravery in exposing the not-so-nice things going on and warning us. The internet can be such a fun place to be, with such decent, honest and caring people like you here, to keep a watchful eye on the wrong doings. Thank you again Eric, and keep ’em coming!